“The desktop PC is dying.” It’s something we’ve been hearing for decades—hell, at this point there might even be writers covering desktop PCs who’ve heard it their entire lives.
But Qualcomm’s push for Arm hardware and Intel’s somewhat frantic defense of the x86 has lots of people repeating it again. At Computex, Adam picked the brain of Steve from GamersNexus on this topic.
In the consumer market, standalone desktop PCs are going to remain a small slice of the pie compared to laptops. But what’s prompted this speculation is Qualcomm’s latest generation of Snapdragon chips and Microsoft’s wholehearted embrace of Arm-based hardware.
The Surface line’s latest refresh is chock-full of it, and plenty of other OEMs are onboard. What does this mean for desktop PCs and the enthusiasts, like us, who love to tinker with them?
Assuming the entire market doesn’t switch over to Arm hardware overnight—and give Intel’s board simultaneous heart conditions—Steve is most concerned about the idea of a split market.
“If it’s not a better thing for desktop, the thing that I would consider a challenge is, suddenly you’re splitting development support, like with software and some extent hardware. What’s that gonna translate to for the smaller market, like enthusiast DIY?”
The prospect of desktop PC hardware—and user-accessible x86 hardware in general—becoming an isolated sliver of the market is a grim one.
We’ve all but abandoned the idea that laptops can have their memory upgraded, with the latest Intel processors baking it right into the processor package with an upper limit of just 32GB. The thought of that happening to desktop PCs, or the category becoming so isolated that it slides into irrelevance, isn’t something us nerds would welcome.
But we’ve seen the writing on this particular wall before. Intel and AMD continue to release more and more powerful hardware, with the latter even dedicating entire sub-categories to gaming desktop PCs.
Steve says the song sounds familiar: “…But this has been a topic forever, right? ‘PCs dying?’ I guess the question I would have is like, is it different this time? Or is it just another, ‘Here’s a different reason it’s dying.'”
And there’s always the prospect of a market-wide shift to Arm, in which desktops just follow along. In that case, there’s nothing stopping manufacturers from keeping hardware modular and upgradeable… assuming they think that market is worth it. For more chin-scratching on the future of the PC, subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.